PW has announced its (casually) bookseller-chosen Cuffie Awards, with Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury's Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes as the picture book pick. It is a big favorite here, too, getting a starred review and a spot on our Fanfare 2009 list. Every parent I know loves it, and the text and design beg for story hour sharing.
But I have a nagging problem with it. The whole point of the book is that everyone has ten fingers and ten toes, and that while we celebrate each baby's uniqueness, isn't it great that they (and, by extension, we) have this particular array of anatomy in common? "And both of these babies, / as everyone knows, / had ten little fingers / and ten little toes."
Except, of course, when babies don't. Not everybody does--some are born with fewer (or lose them due to disease or accident), some come with an extra one or two, some people don't even have two hands, for God's sake. I know that these people are relatively rare, but there is something that bothers me when a book so determinedly inclusive manages to be so clueless about what it's actually saying. If this book had a mouth, it would be cramming all ten toes into it right now. You would never (knowingly) read this book to a child who didn't have ten fingers and toes, would you? And shouldn't that give us pause about sharing it with the ones who do?
I don't usually have much patience for debates about "sensitivity" and have no idea why this book bugs me as much as it does.
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Blog: Read Roger - The Horn Book editor's rants and raves (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: storytelling, nonconformity, Intercultural understanding, digital publishing, I am so going to hell, Add a tag
Blog: Read Roger - The Horn Book editor's rants and raves (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Coleen Salley, storytelling, Authors, nonconformity, Add a tag
Horn Book publisher Anne Quirk writes:
Coleen Salley died yesterday. Her professional life was spent mostly at the University of New Orleans, where she was a distinguished professor of children’s literature, and that’s the excuse most of us in children’s book publishing used for inviting her out for dinner whenever we were within hailing distance of a bayou. But the real reason was that she was the funniest person ever born. When Colleen began to wrap her smoky southern drawl around a story, we cradled our drinks and prayed that story would never end. In her 70s, she began writing down some of those tales she’d been telling. If you never met Coleen, search for one of the several audio books she recorded over the years, then imagine her sitting across your table. That might give you some sense of the terrible loss so many of her friends are feeling today.
Blog: Read Roger - The Horn Book editor's rants and raves (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Picture Books, nonconformity, Intercultural understanding, Add a tag
I'm intrigued by Arthur Laurents's plans to bring West Side Story to Broadway next winter in a "bilingual revival," having the Puerto Rican characters speaking Spanish and otherwise making the show "more realistic." (Here's hoping he doesn't try to set it in the present, though, because that gorgeous, swanky 1950s brass would sound as corny as Kansas in August.)
That theme of bridging cultures (I know WSS is based on R&J, but making the Montagues and Capulets into Jets and Sharks throws us into contemporary contexts) came to me yesterday when I was editing a Guide review of The Umbrella Queen, a picture book by Shirin Yim Bridges and Taeeun Yoo. Apparently based on the "umbrella village" of Bo Sang in northern Thailand, the story is about a little girl, Noot, who longs to paint umbrellas the way all the women in the village do, but instead of painting the traditional patterns of flowers and butterflies, she paints elephants. The Thai king comes to judge the umbrellas in the annual contest and names Noot the winner, "because she paints from her heart." It's a nice enough little story, but has an unacknowledged dynamic that shows up time and again in American books for children about "other cultures," allegedly honoring different cultural norms but in fact contravening them to celebrate the spirit of individual expression. (Historical fiction does this too, as Anne Scott MacLeod wrote in a brilliant essay for us.) It's a case where the story's need for conflict subverts its simultaneous claim on cultural authenticity. There's no story if Noot happily paints flowers and butterflies, but the fact that she triumphs by painting elephants says, in effect, that the tradition that inspired the story isn't worth holding on to. Can you have it both ways?
Blog: Read Roger - The Horn Book editor's rants and raves (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Politics, Children's writers as sneaks, nonconformity, Add a tag
I'm really loving Cory Doctorow's Little Brother (Tor), which Jonathan Hunt is reviewing for the July Horn Book. It's rare--always has been--to find YA realistic fiction that engages the political dimension, especially one so enthusiastic about disturbing the status quo. And it does so contagiously--I totally want to go out and hack something now.
And now, I can! Doctorow has compiled some how-to's for such plot points from his book as encrypting Gmail, starting a flash mob, blocking an RFID chip, and getting over a barbed-wire fence. Also included: "What to do when the police stop you."
Blog: Read Roger - The Horn Book editor's rants and raves (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Opera, nonconformity, Intercultural understanding, Cliques, Add a tag
Saturday night we went to see a semi-pro production of Puccini's Turandot in the dining hall of Lowell House, a Harvard College dorm that has been putting on operas since the 1920s. Turandot is pretty grand as these things go and the production didn't miniaturize anything--full orchestra, colorful (very "Oriental") sets and costumes, big voices in the big parts. The program, and a preshow announcer, politely admonished us to applaud only at the end of an act, a request (rather stuffy, but maybe they were worried about time) that the audience adhered to until Calaf's big third-act opening number, "Nessun Dorma." We all clapped madly.
It was practically Pavlovian. We clapped because it was a beautiful performance, but also because we knew the tune and loved it, and we knew other people knew the tune and loved it--group hug, anyone? "Nessun Dorma" is a high culture artifact that secured a place for itself outside the gates when it was kicked over the wall by Luciano Pavarotti at the 1990 World Cup. Now it shows up everywhere (fabulously by Aretha Franklin at the 1998 Grammys); it has nothing to do with Turandot; and you can get it as a ringtone.
Purists scorn but I love this. Opera buffs are like librarians or anybody in a community of shared aesthetic commitment (although Wayne Kostenbaum writes that putting two opera queens in the same room spells trouble). Everybody likes being an insider to something, whether it's opera or--I hoped I would get here--children's books. We saw that in spades here last week, when children's-book-lovers came together to rail at what they perceived was an attack by me on their affections. But it was also a very in-groupy fight on all sides, one amongst ourselves, the kind of debate that reinforces allegiance to the group because all sides agree that This Matters.
I don't think we adults who love children's books do so to be insidery (hmm, children's books or high fashion. Which will make me cooler?) but our shared love does give us an inside to be in. We like having a cultural vocabulary shared by a few, but we are also aware that the reason we're few is because children's books don't matter to most adults. This cognitive dissonance can cause both anxiety and a pleasant sense of superiority.
So we too like it when one of Ours is kicked over the wall, whether it's everybody reading Harry Potter or, my favorite example, a country song that can cite Charlotte's Web ("now I'm the one that's caught in . . .") and assume that listeners will know the reference. It reinforces our superiority (we knew Harry Potter before he was Harry Potter) and soothes our anxiety (if Charlotte's Web is part-of-everything then maybe I am too). Mostly it's just nice to have your affections confirmed, like when you convince a friend to like a book or a song you like. It makes you like it even more.
Blog: So many books, so little time (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: kiss, fire, Add a tag
I've finished re-reading and re-re-revising my next manuscript, for a book called Fire, Kiss, Electric Chair (unless and until Putnam’s marketing department gets their hands on it) and making sure I've addressed all the points in my editor's seven-page, single-spaced editorial letter. He is known as one of the most thorough in the business for good reason.
[Full disclosure: and of course the book isn't really done. My editor still needs to approve my changes, and then there's the copy-editor, and page proofs, and galleys, and and and ...]
He had had me re-write it from third to first person, and come to think of it, most YAs are in first person. Here are some other things he wanted, so maybe you can steal some of these ideas:
- Need a better sense of Ellie. What makes her tick? Show her at school, with friends, involved in a hobby
- Bring depth to her emotions
- Sustain them
- Have them last longer than just reacting to previous bit of dialog
- She should be feeling a lot of emotions – she’s a teenager
- Show emotion toward her love object. Make us feel how she falls in love. Make her more gaga.
- Avoid over interpretation. I realized, I felt, I could tell that – passive and sound third person. Show us how she feels, not what things mean.
- Show, don't tell. [Full disclosure: didn't I already know that? But sometimes my editor pointed out places where I summarized and leached out the emotion in the process, ie, "Being patted down – even by a female cop – with my hands up against the wall and my legs spread apart, was humiliating and degrading." That was telling. I needed to show it.]
- The wrap up to any mystery or thriller can only be one chapter long.
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Blog: Three Men in a Tub (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: LOST, Captain America, KISS, Gilligan's Island, Boss Hog, Add a tag
Well, they've killed off another superhero. Captain America bit the Big One.
I'm getting tired of this in the LOST tv show as well. I've lost count of how many folks they've axed.
It makes me wonder what the shows would be like that I grew up with, if this trend had existed then. How long would Mrs. Howell have lasted on Gilligan's Island? Would Boss Hogg have gotten mowed down by the General Lee? How about having KISS crash-land on LOST, do a quick show on the beach, and then somehow get rescued without all the other castaways? It could work!
I haven't read this particular book, but I get similarly bugged by arguments that try to make us all feel good about each other by pointing out the one thing everyone has in common. Because, as you point out, there's always someone who doesn't fit in, no matter how general you try to get. So what then? If a baby has twelve toes, or doesn't have fingers, then it's okay to think of them as Other?
So many of the reviews emphasize the "obvious" reason to celebrate this book: that these are things "babies everywhere have in common". We know it isn't so. Sobering but true. You have a very good idea about why it bugs you -- and thanks for saying so.
I thought about that too, when reading it to my nephew. He has all ten fingers and toes, but sometimes because the fingers and toes are so tiny, you can do a quick look and it looks like there are more than ten... Anyway, it's interesting that no one has mentioned this issue in a review.
I love the Cuffie awards. Although it does make the booksellers seem much more fun than the librarians- we take our Newbery SO seriously!
I think it might bother you because it stresses what is normal. I have to admit I haven't read it. I think in picture book I look for what is different and distinctive. People are all different, unique in themelves so a book that stresses where we are supposedly all the same does not draw me.
I have been selling the Peter Spier book "People" for decades. It's quite a standard. And about once a year someone calls me on the carpet for selling it. These "People"-Haters are quite energetic.
Recall that "People" is a big book jammed with teensy pictures that do an anthropology-like survey of world habits and appearances and fashions and foods and customs, with each page captioned something like "We all love to eat, but we do it in different ways." The book's comedy often comes from juxtaposing "normal" foods with "strange" 'indigenous' foods from various cultures.
"People"-Haters of course object to the stereotyping.
"People"-Lovers (of which there are many more, since it's a longtime bestseller), say that it gives kids a multicultural introduction to diversity.
"People"-Haters respond that it ignores individual variation that occurs WITHIN the world of cultural difference.
Anyway, I suspect that this lovely All Have Ten Toes book will similarly send a couple of customers every year into exclamations of irritation. Fortunately I can simply fall back on the First Amendment and profess no opinion.
One problem people have with People is the line that runs along something like "Most people are good . . . but some people are bad" and shows a man in jail--I remember Ginny Moore Kruse wondering what that image might say to a child whose parent was in prison.
But, Andy, as far as Ten Fingers goes you are dodging the question, save for your implication that people who might have a problem with it are tedious irritants. No one is talking about not selling it (or not buying it). Just that its theme might be contradicted by its conceit, which mightn't seem so bad had the book not been so damned virtuous.
Extra digits aren't actually all that rare, and they occur much more often in the US in black children than white children. Some food for thought?
This hadn't occurred to me, Roger, but I'm grateful that it occurred to you. Thanks for the insight.
Well, I think I do understand your idea: you're saying that the "theme" is Universalist and yet there's something importantly Intolerant in the "conceit"... Intolerant of physical difference?
And I'm agreeing with you. But maybe -- speaking as a bookseller -- in bringing up my experiences selling "People" I was making a sort of relativist argument.
Universalism is intolerant of intolerant people. This is a very big issue. Universalists do not like bigots. They can talk about loving all neighbors, so maybe they say "we don't HATE bigots, we simply want to ensure that people don't get hurt by bigots". So, for instance, Universalists would like to halt genocides. And that means that Universalism includes a form of Intolerance. Intolerance of social injustice. Intolerance towards dangerously harmful intolerant others.
So, I think you are making this point. You are aligned with Universalism. The book is Universalist. And, speaking as a Universalist, you are questioning a line of subtle intolerance in the book's Universalism. You are being intolerant of intolerance. And you know the authors of the book, who are also Universalists, would be dismayed to think of the intolerant aspect of their Universalist message.
However, I, as a bookseller, do sell all manner of books, including imperfectly and incompletely Universalist books. And so I'm constantly feeling compromised, and I frequently point out the flaws and special issues and subtle inconsistencies in books. Today I had a woman who needed books for a bi-racial couple. Her (white) daughter is married to a West African man. I recommended "Black Is Brown Is Tan" (imperfect because the races/genders of the depicted parents are opposite those in the customer's daughter's family) and "More, More, More Said The Baby" (I specifically showed her the white grandma and the black grandchild)...I showed her the Susan Kuklin book "Families".. I showed her "Everywhere Babies"...and I TALKED to her the whole time. I explained the way each book did or did not pertain to her situation.
(She ultimately purchased "The Grouchy Ladybug" in the Arabic language edition.)
This is why it's good to have professionals engaging with adults who are choosing children's books. The "Ten Toes" book needs to be sold with care because there's an issue with (accidental) presentation of (implicit) intolerance towards babies without ten fingers and ten toes. This should be considered, when recommending and choosing this book.
However the book shouldn't be blamed for this fact. It simply is best when hand-sold.
No Universalist message will ever be wholly consistent, since Universalism contains that pesky strain of Intolerance, willy-nilly. (I personally, when checking out customers at the cash register who have selected this book, will deal with this problem by sometimes quietly mentioning this "diversity" problem with this book, in a friendly way.)
I really like this book (as a bookseller and a mom), but it's the end that really bugs me. Why does the final mother and baby have to be white? Aren't there enough precious baby books featuring white people?
And, in fact, why does it have to be a mom at all? Aren't there enough precious baby books featuring moms?
Thanks, Roger. I thought I was the only person who didn't love this book. I think it's not so much showing children from all over with ten fingers and ten toes that's a problem, it's the refrain "as everyone knows" that makes such a sweeping generalization, over and over. I also hated the way it leads up to the "divine" little white child at the end. It reminded me of the Robert Louis Stevenson poem from "A Child's Garden of Verses" that ends "Don't you wish you were me?"
Roger, I had the same thoughts in the MIDDLE of reading the book during a baby storybook hour at the library! I had already perused the book and was excited about reading it, but as I looked around the room during the reading, I realized that I didn't know for sure if the babies (or adults, for that matter) present had ten fingers and ten toes. I finished the book, and it certainly remains on the shelf and available to kids, but I am not going to read it aloud again. There are so many wonderful read-alouds out there that I don't feel bad keeping this one out.
At storytime my regular gag is to do the rhyme "if you're wearing red today..." for a few rounds, then say, "Let me see if I can find something that EVERYONE is wearing. Hm. If you're wearing HAIR today..." ...and it always gets a laugh. But I always make myself check the audience first, and finish up by saying "I'm glad that one worked--not everyone has hair." I did catch myself once before it was too late--thank goodness.
My adorable niece has 12 toes, and so this book is quite irksome to me.
Ron Meshe, I think you might be missing the point of the RLS poem ("Foreign Children"), which I'm almost sure is a sardonic take on the attitudes of the fine Brits and Americans who traveled abroad at the time.
I don't think RS is saying that the book is intolerant. I think he's just saying that its internal logic is inconsistent.
Well the internal logic may be inconsistent, and the perception of some readers may as a consequence be that the book exudes a form of intolerance, but I will sell it anyway! This book is really very good compared to many other books which I comfortably sell. I could take you on a tour of my store and pull out many books and tell you what it is that irritates me about them.... I am personally extremely picky, and I allow my customers to drive my buying to a large degree. I sell more of what's selling. Evidently, what I like or accept about the books I stock is more important than what I dislike or cannot accept!
I simply think that this particular book has lovely pictures and a fun rhyme and a good message, and its problematic aspects aren't terribly problematic. If used at a storyhour, you can always start by having all present count their fingers and toes. If someone has an unusual number, you can celebrate, and change the text as read to "ten or twelve" as an act of empowerment for all present. Lots of books get edited by the storyteller during the reading, depending on who's in the audience.
being deaf, my pet peeve is this world is designed for hearing people :D oh well, that's life.
<<<<<"everyone has ten fingers and ten toes, and that while we celebrate each baby's uniqueness, isn't it great that they (and, by extension, we) have this particular array of anatomy in common? "And both of these babies, as everyone knows, had ten little fingers and ten little toes.">>>>>> it sounds to me that she is trying to explain how we are alike as human being. I remember watching Disney Jungle book where the mother gorilla told the human boy to listen to her heart... and told him that it beats the same as his.
other than that, she probably could have worded it better though
Everyone knows...
The first thing you do after your baby is born is to count their fingers and toes!
I love this book!
I don't think the book is so much intolerant as it is oblivious.
Last Anon, we count the fingers and toes of a new baby to make sure they're all there. As we know from countless heartwarming moments on TV, finger- and toe-counting is warm-and-fuzzy shorthand (heh) for "our baby is normal." And I'm asking: how would this book make a not-normal, digit-wise, child, or parent of a such a child, feel? LEFT OUT. Which is ironic, seeing that the theme of the book is "we're all in this together."
Universalists, Andy? Aren't those the people who pray To Whom It May Concern? ;-)
My small daughter thinks the most interesting thing about President Obama is that his Chief of Staff is missing one of his fingers.
I would add to some of the comments above that even if you went to far as to check everyone's fingers and toes at story hour, you don't know about the friends and family of those people. I'm not advocating oversensitivity, just saying that this book may not be as great as it seems.
There's also something I'm having trouble articulating about it being sort of weird in the first place to bring our human similarities down to a physical characteristic like that. It just doesn't seem that interesting.
Overall, this seems more like a book for adults (who are the ones obsessed with counting baby fingers and toes and want to feel good about Encouraging Diversity) than for kids--if you've seen a bunch of babies and toddlers from vastly different backgrounds interact with each other, you know that they recognize each other as equals immediately.
Gosh I am really confused at why this is so hard.
I just re-read the book and it certainly does not say that all children have ten fingers and ten toes! It says that everyone knows that the babies IN THE PICTURES IN THIS BOOK have ten fingers and ten toes. Everyone knows it because everyone reading the book knows how to count to ten. Count the fingers and toes of the babies in the pictures and those babies have ten of each. The book does not say that all children have ten fingers and ten toes, but that a counting reader knows how to count the fingers and toes presented in the pictures. All nine babies in the book have ten fingers and ten toes. Count for yourself! That is all the book says. It says nothing about "all children have ten fingers and ten toes". To assume that the book is making a blanket statement about all children in the entire world is a big extrapolation.
We are now overthinking this. Next topic!
Sorry for being overbearing in the previous post.
This whole kerfluffle reminds me of the way some people get upset about how in "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" the butterfly emerges from a cocoon, not a chrysalis. These people say that the book therefore teaches children something which is not scientifically true. I know that lots of teachers have to spend some extra time disabusing children of Eric Carle's version of events. The problem is big enough that there's a response to the complaint on the Eric Carle Studio website.
(www.eric-carle.com/q-cocoon.html -- The response points out that there is indeed a species of caterpillar that comes out of a cocoon, and then goes on to explain the metaphorical nature of the book's meaning.)
So -- should "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" be kept from children because it can be misinterpreted or is somewhat inaccurate? That's not the correct solution. It's simply a matter of mentioning at some appropriate point to the child -- at a teaching moment -- that "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" isn't, in all cases, entirely correct. And that's how the Ten Little Fingers book's issue might be approached.
I'm sort of at a loss. I think this is wonderful book, but I don't see it as story-time pick. Oxenbury's books have always seemed to me to be directed very strongly toward a one-on-one interaction between a loving adult and a single child. With their large simple pictures and their rhythmic rhyming language, they are like primers for how to cuddle a baby and share a book with a very small child.
If a book is not suitable for every audience and venue, I don't see that as a flaw. And I really don't see that the outcome of reading this book to your little one would be deleterious.
Cognitively, children are very busy sorting out what things have in common and when variations mean that an object fits into a different category-- this is a dog, this is a dog with three legs, this is not a dog. Telling them that everyone has ten little fingers and ten little toes is not going to make them see those who are different as "not real babies."
The emphasis on fingers and toes comes from our fascination with them, not just as because they are markers of "normal." Because they are darling. We play with them and we count them, long after we know how many of them there are, and kiss them, and send the little piggies to market over and over again.
So, no, don't read this one to a random sample in a story time. And for the same reason, when you are handselling the Oxenbury board books point out the one that says, "Wave to Daddy, Wave to Mum," just in case. Not everyone has a daddy and mum to wave to. There's nothing wrong with the book, it just might not fit the audience.
I'm sort of at a loss. I think this is wonderful book, but I don't see it as story-time pick. Oxenbury's books have always seemed to me to be directed very strongly toward a one-on-one interaction between a loving adult and a single child. With their large simple pictures and their rhythmic rhyming language, they are like primers for how to cuddle a baby and share a book with a very small child.
If a book is not suitable for every audience and venue, I don't see that as a flaw. And I really don't see that the outcome of reading this book to your little one would be deleterious.
Cognitively, children are very busy sorting out what things have in common and when variations mean that an object fits into a different category-- this is a dog, this is a dog with three legs, this is not a dog. Telling them that everyone has ten little fingers and ten little toes is not going to make them see those who are different as "not real babies."
The emphasis on fingers and toes comes from our fascination with them, not just as because they are markers of "normal." Because they are darling. We play with them and we count them, long after we know how many of them there are, and kiss them, and send the little piggies to market over and over again.
So, no, don't read this one to a random sample in a story time. And for the same reason, when you are handselling the Oxenbury board books point out the one that says, "Wave to Daddy, Wave to Mum," just in case. Not everyone has a daddy and mum to wave to. There's nothing wrong with the book, it just might not fit the audience.
My daughter received this book at Christmas. I had the exact same response and I, too, have a problem with over-sensitivity. Go figure.
I have to say that count their toes was not the first thing I did with my three children.
For the first one, it was revealed that he had a heart condition so the number of toes he had was really the least of my worries.
And for the other two, ensuring their hearts were ok also eclipsed the number of their toes and fingers.
I like the book but I shall be careful in read-aloud situations from now on. Thanks Roger for making me aware. - Daphne
I'm overwhelmed with over-sensitivity! What can I read at story time that WON'T offend someone, somewhere? :)
Sorry about the double post. I hit a glitch and wasn't sure if it had been sent or not.
All babies can breathe and swallow at the same time, which is something adults can't do.
If your child didn't have the required digits, you wouldn't read this book. You might also never be able to do 'this little piggy' if your child had one extra, or one less digit. But, you know what? If your child had extra/missing digits, you'd probably have a lot more on your mind that getting all heated up about a Mem Fox book.
(insert tongue in cheek) You know what bugs me? People who have ten fingers and ten toes, getting all affronted on behalf of people who don't.
I guess I maybe should keep my seeing-person's thoughts on The Black Book of Colors to myself! ;-)
my cousin lost one of his fingers when we were playing "roll down the hill in a barrel" as children. does anyone want me to email him?
b
Two absolutely amazing talents put out a book that can rival Goodnight Moon (or my lamented out-of-print favorite, Catch Me, Kiss Me, Say It Again) as a very first book. And it comes under fire because it's only 99 and 44/100ths percent universal.
Wow, talk about no good deed going unpunished!
"And it comes under fire because it's only 99 and 44/100ths percent universal. "
Actually, the percentage is much, much lower thanks to the white mom and baby at the end. Am I really the only one posting in this (admittedly out of control) thread who is bothered by that?
We have books about birthdays. There are children who are not allowed (religion) or who are never offered the chance to celebrate birthdays. There are books about hair (nappy and other types)...some kids have illnesses which cause baldness. Please. If you are concerned about your child reading a particular book, then don't read it.
I'm only going to make my point one more time. The theme of the book is that however different we are and wherever we may live, in one way we're all the same, and isn't that comforting? But, when it comes to fingers and toes, we aren't all the same. The moral is defeated by the metaphor.
Over and out.
This is one child who will probably not be getting that book for his birthday: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7870769.stm